Quenched
by The Readers Muse
Summary: He woke up to a cool finger pressed ghost-like against his lips.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Spoilers up to the end of season four – after the prison fell. Written for Nine Lives Halloween Challenge and can be considered a prequel to "Parched" which was a Caryl + Carickyl (Carol/Daryl/Rick) vampire!au. If that doesn't turn your crank you don't really have to have read "Parched" for this fic to make sense. This fic can be stand-alone and is purely Caryl in terms of pairing.

 **Warnings:** Contains: sexual content, vampires, vampire turning, questionable consent issues, adult language, blood, blood-drinking, angst, drama. Carol is kind of evil now, okay?

 **Quenched**

 _ **Chapter One**_

He woke up to a cool finger pressed ghost-like against his lips.

There was no sound. No warmth. No sign that Beth had woken up, huddled against a fallen trunk on the other side of the fire. Not even a stick crack to alert him that someone had managed to sneak up on him. Just the pressure of skin against skin and the unnerving suspicion that it had been there for a while. Tracing the cracked split of his lips with gentle, reverent little strokes as he'd slept.

He blinked hazily into the pre-dawn dark. Sleep-stupid and slow before the sudden outline of a looming shape kneeling close made him flinch and jerk away. Fumbling for his knife as the steel point flashed in the low coals before-

"Shhh, Daryl. It's just me."

The action lost its violence immediately. Relaxing into something that on anyone else might have come out like hope rather than disbelief. He'd been burned too many times to believe in happy endings. In that perfect possible scenario. Things like this didn't happen his family – to Dixons – he'd had that hammered into him since he'd been old enough to understand the shit his father tended to spew whenever he had a few shots of Bourbon in him.

"Carol?"

The hand was inching back. Thumb outstretched like something in her was yearning to feel it catch against the dried splits of his lips, when he gently captured it - inhaling reflexively. His nose twitched, breathing in the harsh smell of spilled ochre and scorched earth.

"Carol?"

Then-

"Jesus, you're freezing," he muttered, vision adjusting slowly. Trying to find her eyes in the dark as the ashes of the fire splintered into a bridging smoke. Rubbing her hand between his carefully, trying to muster up some heat as the strange coolness of her skin extended all the way up the taper of her wrist before being masked by her sleeve.

The chuckle that left her throat made him do a double take. Momentarily thrown by the deepness of it as he squinted. Just able to make out the curve of her chin, porcelain-sharp and cut-throat beautiful as her skin shone creamy-cold. Horizon starting to stain light as she cocked her head, watchful – predatory – before turning back and fixing him with a sly smile.

"You would be too if you'd been out all night, stumbling around in the dark," she finally replied, breaking the long silence as she adjusted the strap of her pack. Free hand sinking easily into the dew-damp earth as he snatched up his vest and threw it on.

"How'd you find us?"

"Us?" she purred, strangling the note at its height like amusement as she wavered gracefully to her feet. Looking down at him for a long, drawn out pause before-

"You're alone, Daryl."

He kicked to his feet, heart in his throat. Realizing that the hollow Beth had curled up in the night before was empty. There was no sign of her. She was gone. Just gone. Why? _What the fu-_

"She left during night, left you alone," Carol explained unconcernedly, one hand resting on the curve of her hip as he fumbled to his feet. Shouldering his crossbow and grabbing his pack. "She thought you were faking, that you weren't really asleep and decided to go off looking for the others, but got lost. That's how I found her – found you."

He almost sagged in relief. Muscles unclenching as he tried to shrug the ache out of his shoulders. "But she's alright?"

"Of course," Carol returned, seemingly unmoved as he stamped the fire out, mindless of the weak, arcing sparks. "That's why I'm here. My car ran out of gas so I have been on foot for days, I heard her shouting for you. Lost. I took her to the house I've been staying in. It's about a mile or two away. If we go now we can make it before dawn. She's lucky I found her before anything else did."

He grunted in agreement. _Stupid girl._ What the hell had she been thinking, going off like that?

"And she's there?" he asked, eying her through the dark of his fringe as the low light caught her eyes strangely. Making them flash - blank-hollow and bright - like the iris of a predator caught in a lens-flash the second before they lunged forward and went for the kill.

"Yeah, she's there," she replied, teeth flashing white in the orange-red dawn. Tone syrup-slow and deliberate. Like she was oddly amused by the question. "Now c'mon, we need to get moving. I want to be in the house before sun up. It isn't safe around here in the daylight. There are a couple herds in the area. We should wait until they've moved on before we make plans and try to find the others."

He nodded, following close behind as she led the way. Chewing on the inside of his lip as something dark and slow-building churned like sick-up in his gut. Trying to figure out what felt so wrong about the entire thing as her stride turned long and purposeful. Keeping to the shadows as the darkness stretched thin and the feeling like they were racing the sun grew like a cancer in the back of his mind.

* * *

He was breathing hard – finding the pace just a titch too fast to keep up with when she broke the silence. Making him grimace at himself when he realized she wasn't an inch out of breath. _Fuckin' cigarettes. His lungs were shit._

"Did you know what he was going to do?" she asked quietly, not slowing, but turning her head a fraction as the smooth line of her jaw clenched like a tell. "What he did? Did he tell you? Did you know?"

"No," he grunted, letting the point of his bow drift down towards the ground as she ducked under the shade of some low-lying branches. Leading him deeper into the dark. Only shaking her head when he gestured to where the woods started thinning. Probably leading back towards the road. "He just did it. On his own. Came back and- when I asked where you were-"

He frowned, not quite sure what to make of the stiff line of her back. Finding almost nothing familiar in the posture, the way she held herself, the faint edge of aggression and anger that seemed to be rolling off her in waves. It wasn't her. Wasn't right. _Did she think he had something to do with it? That he'd backed Rick? Was that why she was so-_

"I was gonna go out for you, bring you back. But the Governor and his assholes attacked before anything else could happen. Rick was going to talk to Tyreese, ask him what he wanted to do. It wasn't right what he did. _Rick_ wasn't right."

"No, he wasn't," she agreed eventually – softly - tone losing some of its bitterness and edging back towards that fond little lilt she seemed to reserve only for him these days. "But in a way, he _was_. I did it, you know. What he said? Karen and David? I had to."

Hearing it from her own lips wasn't the sucker punch he'd expected it to be. But rather, a relief. Because the moment the words had left Rick's lips, he'd known. The only thing he'd disagreed with was the feeling behind it. Because Carol _would_ do that for them – but she felt it. It wasn't easy. It would never be easy. That was the part Rick was bullshitting. She _did_ feel it. The picture he'd painted in the prison? That wasn't her. It wasn't her and he knew it. _Rick knew it._

"They weren't going to make it and I thought- I thought I could stop the spread. Buy us some time, at least until you and the others got back with the medicine Hershel needed. But- he left me out here. _Alone_ ," she whispered, walking-wounded for the first time as a flurry of emotions – grief, anger, even pain - flittered across her face before she turned away.

 _Rick had been projecting._

 _It was something Hershel had said after Lori died._

 _Guilt for guilt._

 _Rick couldn't face his, so he focused on everyone else._

"I know," he returned simply, chin jutting as he jerked out a nod. Watching her through the thick of his fringe as she whirled in place, walking backwards. Facing him but never once slowing her pace. _Driven. Focused. Uncompromising._ "The others will understand. Even Rick. His head ain't right, that's all."

He caught a glimpse of the house through the trees. Newish with a white picket fence and whole wack of overgrown landscaping. Someone's idea of a private, green gables type of thing that looked more or less decent from the distance. It was far enough away from the road that it was probably defendable. More or less.

"And if the others don't? If they don't understand? When this is all over, will you go with them? Or-" Carol returned, trailing off near the end in a way that was both exciting and damning all at once.

Red flooded across his tongue, making him curse through a swallow when he realized he'd bit down just a smidge too hard on the inside of his cheek. Feeling a whole lot like the cliff they'd been clinging to for the past while had started to give way underneath them. Making him wonder what he was doing to do about it. Cling to what was left because he was in so over his head he couldn't tell his ass from true north or give in and let himself fall?

"They won't."

Her head tilted, nostrils flaring the slightest of bits like she could taste the sudden tension on the air. "But what if they do?"

The question wasn't just loaded, it was smoking in the chamber. Because this wasn't about Rick or the others or even why she was out here. Not really. It was about that thing they'd been dancing around all this time. The thing he hadn't known if they were ever going to broach. If he could ever let himself get that far until the words were suddenly stuttering out of his mouth without him even realizing it.

"Then- well, I'll still be here."

She relaxed in fractions. Like a tangled, atrophied muscle finally cut free of the gristle that snared it. Smile beatific and strangely savage all at once as the morning sun rose a fraction of an inch more in the horizon, leaving them in the fading shadow of the looming house as everything around them blurred into the early morning.

"I know you will."

* * *

They went through the backdoor, following her lead as they paused in the kitchen. Watching her as she listened before nodding to herself and beckoned him up the stairs. Shrugging out of her pack and leaning her shotgun in the corner frame of the open bathroom door.

"She's probably still asleep, Glenn too. He was with someone, another girl when I found him. Someone from the Governor's crew maybe. She didn't make it," Carol murmured as they creaked up the stairs.

His eyebrows shot up.

"Glenn!? You never said Glenn was-"

But she just put a finger to her lips, cutting him off, suddenly playful.

"Let me go check on them," she whispered, like she hadn't heard him. Blue eyes gleaming as the reflection of the photographs that lined either side of the hall jockeyed for position at the very corner of his vision. "Glenn is still recovering. You haven't been exposed to whatever this is so let's keep it that way, huh?"

 _She must have just forgotten, that's all._

 _She's been out here on her own for days, probably hasn't been sleeping much._

 _She wouldn't pull that shit on purpose._

 _Not her._

He nodded stiffly, muscle in his jaw tensing and releasing in frustration and relief as she opened the door and breezed inside. Leaving it half-open so he could see the two of them, sleeping in cots on either side of the room. He frowned. Both were attached to I.V's. Drip-lines that went from metal stands to some taped up gauze and a needle stuck in the pale just above their wrists.

He took a half step into the room, taking in the orange backpack and body armor stacked against the wall of the bedroom. The blinds were all down, making it hard to see after the dawn-glare. But he grunted when he caught sight of Beth's shock of blonde hair streamin' across her pillow. Something in him relaxing the slightest of bits as Glenn protested, doped up and confused as Carol crooned at him soothingly. Pushing the sweaty hair off his forehead, checking his temperature as a small frown creased the skin between her eyes.

"What's wrong with them?" he asked, once Carol had squeezed through and closed the door gently behind her.

"Beth was exhausted and dehydrated," Carol returned easily, ducking under the strap of her rifle as she took the stairs two at a time. Forcing him to rush a bit in order to keep up. "Embarrassed too, I think. The I.V. was mostly a precaution. It's Glenn I'm worried about. He's lost some blood. He said he got out of the tower just before it came down. Something must have grazed his neck a bit. I had to bandage it up and clean it. He should be fine but after what happened at the prison he's weak. He needs time to rest. The both of them do."

"We can't both leave, not with them like that," he pointed out, already thinking about how much ground he could cover before he'd have to circle back. "One of us should go try find the others. Bring them here. We need to regroup. Find Rick and the others."

For a strained half second he could have sworn there was protest in the back of her eyes. Something new and hidden and possessive that didn't really seem like her at all before the moment passed and she nodded slowly.

"I'll stay," she decided, wincing a bit as she snagged the draw string for the blinds above the sink and sent them whizzing down. Leaning up against the kitchen counter, blouse gaping at the neck in an unconscious display. Showing off a swathe of surprisingly clean, porcelain-pink skin he couldn't quite keep his eyes off of before he realized he was staring and furtively looked away. Angry at himself. "Be back before nightfall?"

He nodded, swinging his pack over his shoulder as she moved behind him and shoved a couple of granola bars into the back. Every movement careful – practiced – like she was reigning something in as the soft _h_ _uff_ of her breath made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

He hesitated for a long moment, shrugged his shoulders as the weight of his pack settled. Nerves twisting in his belly before he let his hand ghost over the crux of her arm. Taking one hell of a chance as she stilled – cold and questioning. Finally giving voice to the niggling little part of him that was screaming that something wasn't right. That she wasn't-

"You okay?"

She stretched, somehow managing to make even that beautiful. Long limbs canting out. Decidedly on display as her head cocked with lazy interest. Watching him from a safe distance despite the fact that it felt like every inch of her was spiraling out, threatening to pull him in and drown him the longer his feet stayed planted. The _'what's wrong'_ was silent. Implied. Assumed. Only she breezed right over it.

"I'm not afraid anymore."

His expression must have said it all because she just laughed, a light, mirthless chuckle that went rich and deep as it rolled out. Pinging danger and arousal all at once as she rolled up her sleeves and made to reply.

"I can show you, later, when you come back? I'll explain everything."

He was almost out the door before he paused, something itching underneath his skin as he turned around and caught her looking back at him from the kitchen counter. Hip cocked against the side, sleek, enticing and undeniably different - but somehow still unquestionably _his_ all the same. Like a mirroring reflection of the same damn thing as sapphire sphinx-eyes made a mockery of the stuttered silence.

 _Stuck down the rabbit hole, are 'ya Darlina?_ Merle's voice cracked, splinter-sharp grin obvious as the words echoed through his head. _A woman, huh? Figures. Never were that good with the ladies, were you little bro? Not like your big brother, no sir. It's all about lettin' 'em know who's boss, see. Gotta-_

"I'll bring back dinner?" he offered, letting the words go flippantly even though both of them knew they were anything but. Testing the waters as he tried to navigate through where this left them as she watched him with a closed expression that evolved slowly – like the dawn.

He decided to take it as a good sign when her lip curled up in the first honest smile he'd seen since she'd found him. Eyes warm and dancing, just like they used to as she nodded and made a clear 'shooing' motion. The rusty screen door creaking in protest as he ducked through it and loped off the front porch.

"I'll hold you to it."

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be one more chapter, stay tuned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1 :** Spoilers up to the end of season four. Written for Nine Lives Halloween Challenge and can be considered a prequel to "Parched" which was a Caryl + Carickyl (Carol/Daryl/Rick) vampire!au. If that doesn't turn your crank you don't really have to have read "Parched" for this fic to make sense. This fic can be stand-alone and is purely Caryl

 **Warnings:** Contains: sexual content, vampires, vampire turning, questionable consent issues, adult language, blood, blood-drinking, angst, drama, character death – kinda, minor character death, Carol is kind of evil now, okay?

 **Quenched**

 _ **Chapter Two**_

He angled back before nightfall with a skinny hare and a sour expression. Carol hadn't been kidding about a herd having gone through. The woods were picked clean. Nothin' for miles to eat if you had a human stomach and no time to fight the birds for the rest of the late summer berries.

 _There had been no sign of the others._

 _No tracks, no nothin'._

Still that wasn't what kept his hackles up. Not even close. It was the unnatural quiet that had him on edge. Everything was muted. Even the birds. He could hear them – fluttering and humming up in the upper branches, but he never caught a glimpse. It was like they were all up there, hiding in the canopy - afraid.

He told her about it when he got back. Playing nice over a proper sort of dinner she'd cooked up while he'd been gone. She watched him eat, mostly. Sipping contently on some water as the hours passed. Telling him that she'd eaten with Glenn and Beth earlier, before they conked out again. Filling his plate until he was too stuffed to make any real noise about what had been bothering her earlier as they talked about anything and everything. Things he didn't know he even had a god damned opinion about as she smiled and looked right back at him, like he was the most interesting thing in the fucking world.

Welcoming and hyper-focused, she coaxed him out. Just like she always did. Only this time it was more – fuller – _better_. Until he had her laughing and pulling out a dusty bottle of Johnny Walker Blue as a surprise as time started to grow slurry and over-warm in the best possible way. Putting a perfect sort of glow on everything as he watched her through the slits of his eyes. Content in a way he'd rarely experienced as she pulled him into the den, curling up in front of the open hearth. Letting the best parts of the world in and tuning the rest out as they sat shoulder to shoulder. Body language daring each other to tip the scales and see where the rest of the night would take them.

* * *

He stumbled off to bed with warmth spreading like good feelings in his gut. Buzzed right off his ass as she just smirked and told him she'd take first watch. Pushing what was left in the bottle at him as he smiled sloppy-slow and wavered his way up the stairs. Not drunk, but definitely not sober either as he took a swig right from the bottle. Forgetting to skip the stair that creaked like someone dying as the bannister threatened to splinter on him as he tugged his way up to the top. Figuring there had to be a bathroom somewhere up here as he pinged gently off the walls, boot heels dragging at the dusty carpet.

But it wasn't until after he'd made a pit-stop that he heard it. The restless flutter of sheets and confused muttering. He was going to shrug it off, but he paused mid-stride, thinking better of it when Carol made no sign that she'd heard anything from downstairs. He took another sip from the bottle – fingers looping easy around the neck – before deciding what the hell and knuckled the door to the other bedroom open a crack.

Glenn was muttering and thrashing in his sleep. Flailing and whimpering like a night terror, muscles seizing, hands claw-like and grasping as he fought something that wasn't really there. It pulled at a part of him he hadn't let out in decades. Something that had him across the room and shakin' him awake in less time than he could question why that might be a bad idea.

"Dar-Daryl?" Glenn slurred, hair sweat-stringed and everywhere as he pulled distractedly at the pink-tinted bandage wrapped around his neck. Eyes huge and blinking fast as they tried and failed to focus on him. Feverish-hot hands palming sweat-wet down the curve of his arm before fastening in a vice grip around his leather vest.

"Yeah, you're safe. I gotcha," he grunted, fumbling a bit with the logistics as he set the bottle on the floor and shoved him back onto the bed. "Yer sick as hell, kid. Get some sleep."

"Safe?" Glenn parroted, eyes unfocused. Making him wonder just what was in that I.V besides the anti-biotics. He looked really out of it – completely fuckin' spaced. Different from how the others had looked in the prison. He wasn't coughin' or nothin' either.

"Carol- did she?" Glenn rasped, kneading the beaten leather of his vest as he pulled him down another couple of inches. Trembling as the words got mangled in their race to leave. "Daryl, she- it was her. Somethings wrong, Daryl. She bit-"

But whatever it was the kid was so keen on getting out didn't get much past that. Because before Glenn could finish, he was suddenly nodding off again. Going lax and pliable in his arms as he carefully eased him back onto the mattress. Awkward and tipsy-clumsy as he made sure his head was more or less on the pillow and the mess of blankets was keepin' him decent.

He eyed the I.V bags with an arched brow as he wavered himself upright. Snagging the bottle and taking a long, sloppy sip before tipping it up in a silent salute. Taking a moment to acknowledge that first night at the CDC as an amused smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. Good food. Good booze. And better company. Memories that seemed to get shunted aside more often than not in favor of the hand they'd all been dealt.

 _Kid had always been a lightweight._

* * *

It took a while to shake off, well, whatever _that_ was. Half wondering if he shouldn't go down and ask Carol about it. Figuring Glenn must be gettin' worse or somemat' - hallucinating or whatever. But the drink did its work and eventually he slipped between the stale smelling sheets of the free bedroom with a sigh. Stretchin' out, all lethargic, tactile and shit as he mulled over just how many things had gone right when he hadn't expected them to. Wondering to himself as he dug his face into the crease between the pillows, if everything might just turn out after all. If the others might be holed up somewhere, safe, just like them.

They'd lost the prison.

 _Lost home._

Hershel.

Maybe even lost some of the others.

They were split – divided.

He didn't know where Rick was - Carl, little asskicker.

But he still had her. _Carol._

And damned or not, he wasn't afraid to say that was a trade he'd make _any_ day of the week. Some might say it was the whiskey talking, but the truth was, he'd made his peace with the fact that there wasn't much he _wouldn't_ do to keep her close a long time ago.

* * *

When she came to him that night, it played out like a progression. Like this was where they'd been heading the entire time but until now they'd never quite made it past the threshold.

He raised himself up onto his elbows, rubbing sleep from his eyes as the soft robe she was wearing slipped from her shoulders. Leaving her standing in the glow of the moonlight - naked and unearthly.

 _It was a dream_

 _It had to be._

 _Nothing else made sense._

 _She couldn't be-_

His dick jerked against his thigh as he tried to swallow past the stale taste of sleep and old whiskey. Feeling it firm uncomfortably tight against the hard line of his jeans as she moved over to his side. Running her fingers over the leather vest he'd thrown across the back of one of the chairs before inhaling throatily. Like she could almost taste him on the air as those sweet, lean legs of hers parted for him like a promise.

 _Still, there was something-_

His eyes narrowed as she circled closer. Steps light and predatory-careful that tugged uncomfortably at some dusty part of him. A part that remembered what it was like to feel like prey before it was discarded again. Too busy chewing on the inside of his cheek to do much else as she reached out and ran a pale hand down the length of him – temple to navel with an admiring sound.

"You said you would stay with me," she murmured, small breasts lush and blue-veined as she came around the side of the bed. Beautiful in that way only the real thing can be. "That you _wanted_ to be with me. Is that still true? Do you still want to stay?"

His nod was stuttered and jerky – but in the end seemed to answer more than one question because she smiled with her eyes and crawled up onto the bed. All lithe grace and porcelain-pale skin caught in the moonlight. Every moment was slow – careful. Like even now she was letting him get used to the idea. Like she wanted him to know - to internalize and remember as the mattress dipped and groaned underneath them.

He bit off a gasp when she settled on top of him, hands coming up automatically to bracket her waist before he could second guess himself. Shivering as she nuzzled into him, pressing gentle kisses down the vulnerable span of his jaw.

"You're cold," he drawled, sleep-slow and overwarm. Hissing a little as she burrowed deeper. Hesitating even now at the idea that he was allowed to touch. That she wanted this – him - as she huffed a purring laugh down the thin line of hair that arrowed down his belly.

"Warm me up?"

It was stupid, clichéd even. But that was when the bad part of the tension broke.  
Because it was _them_. How they worked. How they'd evolved from where they'd been at the start, somber and alone, to where they were now - _together_.

And truth be told, what with the way she was moving against him – all lithe and sure - he sure as hell didn't need to be told twice.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – I lied, there will be one more chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Spoilers up to the end of season four. Written for Nine Lives Halloween Challenge and can be considered a prequel to "Parched" which was a Caryl + Carickyl (Carol/Daryl/Rick) vampire!au. If that doesn't turn your crank you don't really have to have read "Parched" for this fic to make sense. This fic can be stand-alone and is purely Caryl

 **Warnings:** Contains: sexual content, vampires, vampire turning, seriously questionable consent issues, adult language, blood, blood-drinking, angst, drama, character death – kinda, minor character death, Carol is kind of evil now, okay? – I am going to say it again, **this chapter is seriously dub-con** and could possibly be termed as a form of rape as Carol does not have his consent in terms of the turning. Please read with caution.

 **Quenched**

 _ **Chapter Three**_

The rest happened faster. Maybe even faster than he'd like. Like worn out brakes giving up the goat only a few meters into a mile long downhill. There was an urgency only she seemed to feel as she flicked open the button on his jeans and worked them steadily down his hips. Every action softened by an odd ethereal quality – like thick mist in the morning or dew glinting in the early dawn - that made everything blur. Snaring his interest every time he tried to get her to slow. Chronic self-doubt kickin' in long enough to make him start second guessing. Wondering if she was nervous. If she was pushing herself. If she really wanted-

He lost track of things when she pressed a trail of fluttering kisses down the curve of his belly. Breathing him in with a filthy, contented sound as she glutted herself across his skin. Learning him. Sharp nails scritch-scratching down his sides as she nosed at the straining bulge in his jeans.

 _Christ._

"Carol, you don't have to-"

His head slumped back against the wooden head board as she pulled him out, making appreciative noises that just made him harden all the further. Balls already in danger of drawing up as the realization of just how fucking long it had been since his prick had enjoyed anything other than his own hand threatened to unman him.

"Carol, I-"

But she just smiled up at him – doe-eyed and dark, iris' glinting – as she leaned down and gave him a long, deliberate lick. Balls to fuckin' tip as he shuddered and froze. Hips bucking up once, twice, rutting into where he wanted her mouth to be like he just couldn't help himself.

 _Fuck._

She took him apart like that. Piece by piece. Encouraging the hand he'd buried in her hair the same time his cock had nestled home in the back of her throat to tug and pull - just like he'd always wanted - as she flicked her tongue down his slit like pleasure was the new form of torture and she was in this to win his god damned _heart_.

"Daryl…"

It didn't occur to him until later that there was nothing sweet and kind in her voice when she said it. Not like there usually was. Just lust and hunger. But right there? In that moment? It was _everything_. It was the world wobbling on its axis and every fucking wet-dream he'd had since he'd admitted to himself that he wanted to ruin her.

He groaned. Loud and long as the scrape of sharp teeth entered the equation. Having him twitchin' and jerkin' like a fish caught on a line. Trying to figure out if he liked it or was just too far gone to care as he dragged her up and laughed into her mouth. Tasting the musky tang of himself as he licked into her. One hand trailing down ivory-cool to cup her breast, feeling the electric thrill of it when it settled into his palm like they'd been fuckin' _made_ for one another.

But she'd always been a determined thing, and soon enough she was right back where she started. Cupping his sack and driving him _insane_ with these bold, kitten-licks along the crown. She kept at it until he wasn't sure he was even still conscious. Until he was gasping, fists clenched against the sheets as his hips rolled up in aborted little thrusts. Fighting the urge to fuck into her mouth as sweat stung in the corners of his eyes and all he could smell was him and her and the stale tang of old sheets and-

"Carol, _Christ_ -just… _I can't-_ "

His blood was hot underneath his skin - too hot. Boiling and churning as she tugged on the tight knot of his sack and stopped his orgasm in its tracks for the third time. But when he slumped limp across the sheets, trying to make a grab for her when she reared back - eyes blown wide, lips red, swollen and wanting as she released his cock with an obscene sounding _pop_ \- he swore that somehow she just knew.

It was almost as if _this_ was what she'd been waiting for this entire god damned time.

Like he'd given her some sort of tell only she could recognize.

When he was desperate, writhing, leaking and just fucking _whining_ for it.

Because suddenly she was moving again.

She had herself up and positioned above him before he could even process the blur. Sinking down on his cock the same moment she nosed into his throat and kissed with her _teeth_. His shout echoed. One part pleasure. One part pain. Hands fierce and too-hard around her hips as he kept her rooted. Mouth slack as the moist warmth of her tightened around him – inviting and coiling out like home.

He already had a thumb between her folds, fumbling a bit before he found and circled her clit by the time she'd moaned and straightened. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and licking away from the burning mark that was starting to spread like liquid tendrils across the stubble of his throat.

She sighed, decadent and without filter when he planted his feet and flexed his hips. Grinding himself up into her as a trickle-trail of something warm and wet curled down his nape.

"All the parts of you that you don't love?" she hummed, lifting herself up before sliding back down again, riding him painful-slow as his fingers dug into the plush of her ass. Trying to goad her into something more – something faster – as the words slipped from her lips like dark, out of place endearments. "I can see them now. Smell them. Give them names. I can make you love them. Love them like I love them."

His head spun, dizzy and pleasure-sloppy as the idea that she'd actually bitten him hard enough to draw red sunk in like a bubble of off-centre laughter. He reached up, fingers slick with her as he made to touch the growing sear. But she batted them away before they found skin, playful despite the rose-tinted teeth she bared down at him.

 _Blood._

 _His blood._

He tried to reach up again, but this time he got a slap for it. Hissing at her as she clenched around him. Distracting him as they moved together. Trying to make sense of the shattered illusion through the haze of pleasure and the strange coursing burn that was skimming through him like liquid flame.

"They put a fever inside," she whispered, fingers curling down his chest. "But I put it out." Tapping at the side of her neck as he looked up and realized what her high collars had been hiding. Bite marks, already healed over and pastel-pink with a new scar. Different from any walkers but somehow just as damning. The tint of fear that started to cover over that of pleasure seemed a long time coming as he gripped her hips – fighting – trying to get her to stop as she firmed her stance and ignored the shattered sound that bubbled out from the depths of his throat.

 _No._

 _Carol._

 _How-_

"But they didn't know I was strong," she growled, eyes blazing, seizing him up in a kiss he wasn't ready for. Stunning him as his brain tried to catch up with how the moment was evolving. Trying to get his tongue to curl around the words he was struggling to find. Everything was hazing out, like tongues of slicking-warmth, a siren-call that was coaxing him down with weakening muscles and the darkening promise of coming pleasure.

 _He couldn't-_

 _She was too strong._

 _She'd always been stronger than him in all the ways that mattered but not like this-_

 _Never like this._

 _This wasn't her._

 _It wasn't-_

He came suddenly - without his consent - as she grabbed him by the pale of his throat and bit down hard. Losing himself to the sudden impulse as he grabbed her hips and ground himself deep, overriding common sense and all the reasons why that wasn't the best idea. Gasping and fighting and spiraling out of everything he understood as a warm, honest burst of pleasure spread through him like the slow roll of a building summer heat.

But it didn't last.

It couldn't.

Because there was pain and the starting scream of adrenaline and Carol growled into his neck, swallowing thickly. There was the sound of his death and the keen of his own whimpers edging across her tongue as she scooped up the heart of him and held it close. Riding him through the aftershocks as blood started to trail down and down and down and-

He lost himself.

* * *

He found what was left of himself lying face down in a lavender thicket, writhing and trying to remember how to breathe. Smelling the earthy taint of soil and growing things as he shredded his nails, digging long violent furrows in the dry earth. Trying to hide – trying to escape as the dying sunlight burned aching sores into every inch of his exposed skin.

He curled up tight, small, like a child trying to regress all the way back to the womb when he sensed her enter the clearing. Too tired. Too hungry. Too _parched_ to run anymore. She was in his head now. Sharing things. Pictures. Images. Wants. Desires. And they were all for him. She'd come looking for him first. Wanting to share whatever this was – what she was now. Wanting to be together, just like she always did. Even though all the good parts of her were gone – taken. Taken by the same sharp teeth and soulless smirk that was slowly draining the last of his warmth away.

He seized in place, a low mewling sound escaping his throat when she started circling. Smiling fierce like a snarl, pleasure and anticipation tangible on the air as she stalked him through the long grass. Preening and sharp like the business end of an ax when a low, unnatural hiss left his throat. The need for fresh red coating across his tongue was almost overwhelming as he fought to hang on.

"If you didn't want me. _Didn't want this_. Didn't want to be with me even a little bit, you would have never let me catch you," she remarked simply. "Trust me, Daryl. I know. The people that did this to me? I tore them apart with my bare hands. They were my first blood. And they made me strong."

"Why?" he whispered, agonized, clutching his chest as bare feet curled down the long stalks, air lush with the scent of crushed lavender and long grass. Watching her through blood-shot slits as she crouched beside him, gentling a hand down his fever-cold skin with a soothing hum that originated from deep in her throat. Something that made him want to roll over and slice her clean down the center. Pressing his ear against her voice box just so he could hear that beautiful little sound without all that meat in the way.

"Because you've always been mine," she answered, like it was simple – _fated_. And maybe it was. Maybe all this had been inevitable since that first look they'd gotten of each other in the Quarry camp. "Just like I've always been yours. I wish it could have been different. That we could have had more time. But this is the only way we can be together. You know that, now, don't you?"

He forgot to flinch when she pulled him close, settling his head in her lap as she brushed back the strings of his hair with gentle grace. Blue-eyes swimming with bloody tears – smiling tremulously as she pressed a kiss across his burning skin. Then another. And another. Again and again until all there was - all there would ever be - was her, the coming night sky and the harsh, beautiful song of bloodlust singing through dying veins.

"We're free now, Daryl," she told him, head tipped up – regal and exalted like some long forgotten god looking out on the pink stained horizon. Welcoming the looming darkness as something solid and wild settled deep in the very core of him. _"Free."_

* * *

The terrible part about it was that when she helped him back to the house and tossed Glenn - squirming and blood-pink - into his arms, he still knew himself. _Knew Glenn_. Knew the look of shocked betrayal as he growled and struck, gathering his friend's body in his arms as virgin fangs tore deep. Flirting with arteries and then the pale ivory of exposed bone as he used the sharp of his teeth to tell him he was sorry. Swallowing pleads that turned into screams – gurgles - and finally, silence.

He knew, he just didn't care anymore.

 _Glenn made sounds between his swallows._

 _Words._

 _Maybe even his name._

 _But it didn't matter._

Because as iron-rich red rolled feral down his chin, letting the cooling body drop across the dusty floorboards, he couldn't help but own it. _Live it._ Take ownership of every second as everything Glenn had been – everything he'd hoped for – flowed free and fearless through his veins. Suddenly struck by the need to share it with her – his spark, his life – as he caught her by the neck and licked his way into her lips. Sharing Glenn's taste between them as he tipped back his head andbreathed their first breath the way it was meant to be. _Together._

He was finally home.

* * *

Surrender was such a complicated word.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.


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